"We have homophobes on our party. That’s disgusting to me. We’re all human beings. We’re all God’s children. Now if they’re going to get off on that stuff—Santorum has said some cruel things—cruel, cruel things—about homosexuals. Ask him about it; see if he attributes the cruelness of his remarks years ago. Foul. Now if that’s the kind of guys that are going to be on my ticket, you know, it makes you sort out hard what Reagan said, you know, 'Stick with your folks.' But I’m not sticking with people who are homophobic, anti-women, moral values—while you’re diddling your secretary while you’re giving a speech on moral values? Come on, get off of it." - Former GOP Sen. Alan Simpson, speaking on MSNBC's Hardball. Hit the link for video.Monday, April 11, 2011
Via JMG: Quote Of The Day - Alan Simpson
"We have homophobes on our party. That’s disgusting to me. We’re all human beings. We’re all God’s children. Now if they’re going to get off on that stuff—Santorum has said some cruel things—cruel, cruel things—about homosexuals. Ask him about it; see if he attributes the cruelness of his remarks years ago. Foul. Now if that’s the kind of guys that are going to be on my ticket, you know, it makes you sort out hard what Reagan said, you know, 'Stick with your folks.' But I’m not sticking with people who are homophobic, anti-women, moral values—while you’re diddling your secretary while you’re giving a speech on moral values? Come on, get off of it." - Former GOP Sen. Alan Simpson, speaking on MSNBC's Hardball. Hit the link for video.
Sunday, April 10, 2011
Via AmericaBlogGay: Hero of the Month: Dame Elizabeth Taylor
In 1987, a man with AIDS went for a swim in a public pool in West Virginia. Although the state health department advised that he posed no threat, the mayor of the town closed the pool and alerted the media so that “everybody in the community [would know] there was an AIDS patient in the pool.”
In 1985, Ryan White, a thirteen year old hemophiliac with AIDS was kicked out of school even though authorities had advised that he, too, posed no risk to his fellow students. When the boy was readmitted a year later, his family received death threats and people on the street would taunt him by yelling "we know you're queer."
In 1986 and again in 1988, hundreds of thousands of Californians signed petitions to place initiatives on the ballot that would have mandated the quarantine of AIDS patients.
Such was the homophobic hysteria surrounding AIDS when Elizabeth Taylor began planning her first AIDS fundraiser. Taylor remembered the reactions:
In 1986 and again in 1988, hundreds of thousands of Californians signed petitions to place initiatives on the ballot that would have mandated the quarantine of AIDS patients.
Such was the homophobic hysteria surrounding AIDS when Elizabeth Taylor began planning her first AIDS fundraiser. Taylor remembered the reactions:
People … slammed doors in my face and hung up on me . . . [P]eople would say, 'No, I'm not getting mixed up in that!' And, 'You have to get out of this, Elizabeth. It's going to ruin your career.'
These reactions only seemed to strengthen Taylor’s resolve. Indeed, the vitriolic homophobia surrounding AIDS motivated her to become involved in the first place. She was quoted as saying
Worse than the virus there was the terrible discrimination and prejudice it left in its wake. Suddenly it made gay people stop being human beings and start becoming the enemy. I knew somebody had to do something. For God's sake, our president didn't even utter the word for years into the epidemic.
If it weren't for homosexuals there would be no culture. We can trace that back thousands of years. So many of the great musicians, the great painters were homosexual. Without their input it would be an entirely different, flat world. To see their heritage, what they had given the world, be desecrated with people saying, 'Oh, AIDS is probably what they deserve' or 'it's probably God's way of weeding the dreadful people out,' made me so irate.
I’ve always associated Taylor with AIDS activism. However, I did not realize the magnitude of her impact until I began to research this piece. Taylor made AIDS her life’s cause. At a time when the disease was called "the gay plague" and others were afraid to even touch people with HIV, Taylor employed her star power to help humanize those living with the disease. She made headlines throughout the world when she was photographed shaking hands with HIV/AIDS patients in a Thai hospital. She helped found the American Foundation for AIDS Research (amFAR) in 1985, and later, in 1991, the Elizabeth Taylor AIDS Foundation (ETAF).
Taylor was a prodigious fundraiser and made large personal contributions to the cause. ETAF operated at zero overhead cost because Taylor personally underwrote the organization’s expenses for raising and administering funds. Over the course of her lifetime, she is said to have raised $270 million for HIV/AIDS. Last month, it was reported that she had donated the bulk of her estate to her AIDS charities.
An impassioned lobbyist, Taylor was not afraid of taking a swipe at leaders for their inaction. At an international AIDS conference, she criticized the first president Bush, remarking, “I don't think [he] is doing anything at all about AIDS. In fact I'm not even sure if he knows how to spell AIDS.” She testified before Congress in 1986 in support of the Ryan White Act, and then again in 1990, when it finally passed. She also spoke at the United Nations, imploring its members to join in the fight against the disease.
Taylor carried on her work despite her own declining health. Toward the end of her life she said, "There's still so much more to do. I can't sit back and be complacent, and none of us should be. I get around now in a wheelchair, but I get around."
Now that I have learned more about Taylor's contributions, my respect for her has turned into awe. Rest in peace, Dame Elizabeth.
Taylor was a prodigious fundraiser and made large personal contributions to the cause. ETAF operated at zero overhead cost because Taylor personally underwrote the organization’s expenses for raising and administering funds. Over the course of her lifetime, she is said to have raised $270 million for HIV/AIDS. Last month, it was reported that she had donated the bulk of her estate to her AIDS charities.
An impassioned lobbyist, Taylor was not afraid of taking a swipe at leaders for their inaction. At an international AIDS conference, she criticized the first president Bush, remarking, “I don't think [he] is doing anything at all about AIDS. In fact I'm not even sure if he knows how to spell AIDS.” She testified before Congress in 1986 in support of the Ryan White Act, and then again in 1990, when it finally passed. She also spoke at the United Nations, imploring its members to join in the fight against the disease.
Taylor carried on her work despite her own declining health. Toward the end of her life she said, "There's still so much more to do. I can't sit back and be complacent, and none of us should be. I get around now in a wheelchair, but I get around."
Now that I have learned more about Taylor's contributions, my respect for her has turned into awe. Rest in peace, Dame Elizabeth.
Saturday, April 9, 2011
Via JMG: Christianist Hate Group Issues Call To Pull Kids Out Of School On Day Of Silence
The Illinois Family Institute, an SPLC-certified Christian hate group, says that parents should yank their kids out of class on the Day of Silence rather than have them exposed to the message that it's wrong to beat up gay children. GLSEN’s end game is the eradication of conservative moral beliefs and the creation of a social and political climate in which it is impossible to express them. Their cultural vehicle of choice for this radical social experiment is public education. What a strategic coup for homosexualists: use our money to capture the hearts and minds of our children. And we do virtually nothing. Our complacence makes us complicit in the damage done to our children and our culture. Moreover, we teach our children by example to be cowardly conformists. It’s time to resist, and there’s no easier way to resist than to call your children out of school on the Day of Silence. Parents and Guardians: Call your children’s middle and high schools and ask if students and/or teachers will be permitted to refuse to speak during class on Friday, April 15. If your administration allows students and/or teachers to refuse to speak during class, call your child out of school. Every student absence costs school districts money. When administrators refuse to listen to reason and when they allow the classroom to be exploited for political purposes, parents must take action. If they don’t, the politicization of the classroom and curricula will increase.The "student walkout" has been endorsed by pretty much every hate group listed by the Southern Poverty Law Center, including the American Family Association, Concernstipated Women for America, MassResistance, and pedophile-enabler Scott Lively.
Friday, April 8, 2011
Via JMG: HomoQuotable - Kerry Eleveld
"President Barack Obama has just announced his 2012 bid for re-election and the inevitable push for LGBT support - donor, voter, and activist - has begun. To be sure, many LGBT Americans would much rather see Barack Obama still gracing the Oval Office come January of 2013 than a Republican. And so, many of us are faced with a familiar dilemma: should we sublimate our intrinsic desire to continue advocating for full equality to the urgency of reelecting a man who has presided over some of the greatest advances in the history of the LGBT movement? My answer: No."This not an either-or proposition in my opinion, nor should we feel compelled to surrender our basic humanity to the whims of the election cycle. That type of thinking is a relic of days past when politicians held firmly to the notion that addressing LGBT concerns would undoubtedly be a drag on their electability. What we have witnessed over the past couple years is just the opposite. The repeal of 'don't ask, don't tell' scored huge points with President Obama's target voters -- independent, moderate, and progressive alike - and his declaration that the discriminatory Defense of Marriage Act is unconstitutional reestablished his ability to show bold leadership. Here's our new reality: The right thing to do is also the popular thing to do." - Former Advocate White House reporter Kerry Eleveld, writing for Equality Matters.
Read Eleveld's complete essay.
Via JMG: BREAKING: Major Defection At NOM, Top Organizer Now Supports Gay Marriage
Jeremy Hooper has a big scoop over at Good As You today, where he exclusively reports that a top organizer at NOM has announced that he now supports marriage equality. Louis Marinelli, known to some of us the virulently nasty moderator of NOM's Facebook page and the organizer of last year's laughably unattended national bus tour, tells Hooper all about his dramatic change of heart. An excerpt:
As a supporter of civil marriage equality, any statements I’ve made in the past about not recognizing homosexual relationships for one reason or another, of course it goes without saying that I no longer stand by these comments and I apologize for the insensitivity. Same-sex couples, whether they are married, in civil unions or domestic partnerships, ought to be recognized for what they are. I consider myself agnostic and while homosexual acts may very well be “immoral” in the eyes of Christian morality, I can no longer stand by any comments I’ve made in the past about the immorality of homosexuality.Go and read the complete interview at Good As You, where Marinelli also denounces Paul Cameron and Peter LaBarbara. And now we wait to see if Maggie Gallagher and Brian Brown will have anything to say about this.......
There are a variety of different sets and sources of morals and no one has the right to impose their set on the rest of society. Once I wrote that homosexuals are deceitful people who care only about themselves or something to that effect. Honestly, aren’t we all? It was wrong for me to exclude everyone else from that description. We all lie and when it comes down to it, we will do what is best for ourselves. So throwing in a little levity, I stand by the comment but want to apologize for limiting its scope to the gay community.
Via AmericaBlog.gay: Five things Obama can do by executive order for the LGBT community
Yesterday, John posted Kerry Eleveld's piece, Doing the Right Thing for 2012, below. It's very good. She makes the case that we must continue the push for equality, even as Obama's reelection gets underway. And, she laid out what we should ask the President to do using his existing power. These asks are based on the initial requests made by the national LGBT organizations, notably HRC and NGLTF, to the Obama transition team. These were initially presentated by the groups at a December 2008 meeting attended by John Podesta and including now-campaign manager Jim Messina. (Funny how often Messina's name pops up when LGBT equality is involved.)
As President, Obama has the executive authority to do all of these items. He doesn't need a bill passed by Congress or a court ruling. They need to be done. From Kerry:
As President, Obama has the executive authority to do all of these items. He doesn't need a bill passed by Congress or a court ruling. They need to be done. From Kerry:
[W]e should concentrate our efforts on five broader initiatives that would incorporate many of the recommendations originally presented by NGLTF and HRC, but in a more comprehensive way. Of the suggestions made by NGLTF, for instance, over half of them took a piecemeal approach to providing nondiscrimination protections at the agency level as well as making those agencies more inclusive in areas such as data collection, definitions, and research.
Rather than assembling a patchwork of progress agency by agency, President Obama should issue executive orders or amend existing ones that set a government-wide precedent for equality in the following ways:
1) Directing the federal government to include LGBT Americans in all federal level data collection efforts.
2) Mandating that all federal contractors must have policies providing nondiscrimination protections for their employees on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity.
3) Prohibiting federal funds from being used to discriminate against LGBT Americans.
4) Prohibiting discrimination against military service members on the basis of their sexual orientation or gender identity.
5) Adding gender identity protections to President Clinton's executive order 13087, which protected civilian federal workers from bias based on their sexual orientation.
Rather than assembling a patchwork of progress agency by agency, President Obama should issue executive orders or amend existing ones that set a government-wide precedent for equality in the following ways:
1) Directing the federal government to include LGBT Americans in all federal level data collection efforts.
2) Mandating that all federal contractors must have policies providing nondiscrimination protections for their employees on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity.
3) Prohibiting federal funds from being used to discriminate against LGBT Americans.
4) Prohibiting discrimination against military service members on the basis of their sexual orientation or gender identity.
5) Adding gender identity protections to President Clinton's executive order 13087, which protected civilian federal workers from bias based on their sexual orientation.
Reasonable enough. Now, we need the administration to do it.
Thursday, April 7, 2011
Via JMG: Savage Vs. Gallagher, Round 2
"I do not intend to 'educate your college students,' Maggie. Your college students—the offspring of NOM supporters—are being 'educated' at Brigham Young, Liberty University, Bob Jones, Seattle Pacific University, and other Christianist madrassas. My college tours typically take me to secular institutions of higher learning where the kids were hooking up and having sex long before my visit to campus."I know what women are like. I may not know what women taste like—I've never gone down on one—but I do know what women are like. My mother was a woman, my sister is a woman, my aunts are women, my favorite bartender is a woman, lots of my friends, neighbors, and coworkers are women. And as someone who sleeps with men and is a long-term relationship with a man, I know what (straight) women have to put up with. I'm not the first gay man that women have turned to for advice about love and sex, Maggie, and I won't be the last. And aren't you a practicing Catholic? Not knowing what women are like (or taste like) has never stopped the Pope from offering his unsolicited advice to women—no birth control, no abortions, no oral, no anal, no handjobs—and it's hypocritical of you to suggest that I'm not qualified to advise women, since I won't fuck 'em, without first telling that old fag in Rome to STFU already." - Dan Savage, responding to yesterday's attack from NOM chaircow Maggie Gallagher.
Read Savage's complete essay.
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